THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1937 PROBLEMS OF PALESTINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22776, 9 July 1937, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1937 PROBLEMS OF PALESTINE

Partition may not present a complete solution of the religious, political and economic problems of Palestine, but it does offer a possible compromise. As such it is unanimously recommended by the Royal Commission and adopted by the British Government. Thus the attempt made since the war by the British Mandatory Government to merge Arab and Jew "in a single State has been abandoned. The differences of the two peoples have proved and arc acknowledged to be irreconcilable. Difficulties in the way of other alternative arrangements (such as the proposed canton system, presumably) are held by the commission to be insuperable. Nor does it minimise the difficulties of partition, although of the opinion that its solution " offers a chance of ultimate peace" and "no other plan does." The commission's expectation is humble —wisdom often goes with humility but the British Government has decided to take the "chance." The physical effect is to divide a country of one-tenth the area 6f New Zealand into three unequal parts. The north-western portion, including most of the coastal plain on the Eastern Mediterranean, is to become a Jewish .State; the south-eastern portion is to be joined to the existing Arab State of Transjordan, under the Emir Abdullah; while some of the holy places, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, are to remain under British mandate, along with a territorial corridor to the sea at Jaffa. The commission points out that other holy places, notably Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, are left under Jewish or Arab jurisdiction, but hopes that arrangements can be made to place them under the British mandate. Such in barest outline is the complex compromise the British Government has decided to apply. Its success must largely depend, however, on its reception by the two peoples concerned, and, given their acceptance, on the spirit they bring to its execution. Both will be asked to give up a great deal in return for certain advantages. How will each react?

To take the case of the Jew first, he is given the chance of a national home, a territorial *house, of which he will be the political master. That should be accounted a clear and immense gain for a harried and otherwise homeless people. So far as his own piece of Palestine is concerned, the Jew will have sovereign status. He will be left to answer in his own way the vexed question of immigration, to work out an economic basis to support his people, to develop the national culture and, generally, to work out his own salvation. Here, at last, is a prospect of Zionism an practice. A first and infinitely sad objection is that it is Zionism without Zion. Jerusalem is left outside the Jewish State and national home, and with the city some 60,000 Jews. A bitter reflection, this, although responsible Jews recognise that hundreds of millions of Christians and Moslems would resent Jewish control of Jerusalem. Almost as insupportable is the partition of Palestine, a partition that allots "the plains to the Jews and the hills to the Arabs." Such a division, as history shows, contains an uneasy significance for the plainsmen. And, as matters now stand, the Jews cannot have free and undisputed possession of their small place in the sun. Without Jerusalem they will number about 350,000 within the new State, but already settled there are some 250,000 to 300,000 Arabs. The latter own, it is estimated, 80 per cent of the land. They can scarcely be expatriated en masse and their lands completely expropriated. Even suppose these and many other difficulties be accepted or ovei-come, consider the situation of this little State' of 2000 square miles —less than the area of Ashburton County squeezed in between hills and sea, and overlooked from north, east and south by jealous and populous Arab States.

If the Jews should prove unsatisfied by the suggested settlement, the Arabs may be expected to be even more refractory. Their intransigent attitude was typified by an Arab witness at the commission. To the suggestion of a conference, he arrogantly rejilied: "No Arab will sit at a table with anyone who calls himself a Jew. There is nothing to justify the British Government in giving away other people's property to strangers. The Arabs will refuse to give up one foot of land to the Jews." How is consent to be obtained from such an attitude, widespread among the Arabs'? If there is not consent, are the Arabs to bo coerced by military lorcc? They have owned, occupied and tilled the land for centuries. It was not by their will, but against it, that since 1022 the Jewish population has grown from 84,000 to -100,000. .That increase was made possible only by immigration under British protection. The Arabs do not see why they should agree to permanent alienation of a part—and the most fertile part —of the country they consider their own, in order to solve a problem not of their making. Whether the political and financial inducements offered them if they will join up their part of a dismembered a Palestine with Transjordan will be effective remains to be seen. The whole business, from whoever's side it is viewed, British, Jew or Arab, gives rise to the gravest misgivings. Apart from the domestic trouble, Palestine's position in the Middle East, the British Empire and the world should not be overlooked. There is the navnl base and oil port at Haifa; there is the Suez Canal; and there arc Imperial air routes to be considered. All will hope, therefore, that the commission's one "chance of ultimate peace" will be taken by the interested parties.