ARABS AND JEWS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22447, 17 June 1936, Page 13

ARABS AND JEWS

. TREATY OF 1919 STARTLING ALLEGATIONS LAWRENCE'S INTERVENTION By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright (Received Juno 16, 10.25 p.m.) LONDON, June 16 The Jerusalem correspondent of the News Chronicle says the propaganda in the struggle between the Arabs and the Jews has thrown up the name of the late Lawrence of Arabia, who is alleged to have mistranslated for King Feisal an ArabJewish treaty signed in London in 1919 which was published recently. Dr. C. Weizmann, president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has produced a copy of the treaty as proof that Feisal strongly sympathised with the scheme for a Jewish national home in Palestine but the Arabs declare that the document is a Jewish forgery. This is improbable,- but it is suggested on photostatic copies of tho treaty that Lawrence mistranslated the document because he realised that unless Feisal could be forced into giving the Jews their demands ho could not fulfil his dream of a great Arab Empire. Feisal could not read English and added a protective footnote which Lawrence translated on Dr. Weizinann's copy and Feisal signed. This stated: "If the Arabs are established as I asked in a manifesto addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, I will carry out this agreement." A photostatic copy of Feisal'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 faultily translated the treaty. Accordingly, it is suggested that if he mellowed Feisal's footnote he almost certainly toned down the Zionist aspirations presented to Feisal. The Moslem Council supports this view, declaring that when it was hinted that a treaty existed, Feisal telegraphed denying his signature. This telegram is now in tho possession of Hadi Bey, a signatory of the treaty, at present interned in connection with the disorders.

PALESTINE UNREST

TERRORISM CONTINUES LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES JERUSALEM, June 15 Terrorists continue to defy the regulation ordering the death penalty for setting fire to buildings and throwing bombs, which, however, are mostly useless. Snipers wounded two Gordon Highlanders to-day. The damage to Jewish property is estimated at £150,000. The Arabs assert that they are losing £1,000,000 a month in trade and wages, but they have not suffered much damage to property.

BRITISH ATTITUDE PROPOSED COMMISSION ORDER THE FIRST ESSENTIAL British Wireless RUGBY, Juno 15 The Colonial Secretary, Mr. W. Ormsby-Gore, declined to make a statement in the House of Commons to-day on the causes of the unrest in Palestine on the ground that they would be among the matters for investigation by the proposed Royal Commission. Replying to a supplementary question, Mr. Ormsby-Gore stated emphatically that the commission would be set-up only when law and order had been fully restored in Palestine. There were other supplementary questions which went unanswered, but the Minister intervened to contradict, "clearly and definitely," an incidental suggestion that the Grand Mufti was paid" a salary by the British Government. _____