NEW ZEALANDER IN TROUBLED PALESTINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23281, 25 February 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEW ZEALANDER IN TROUBLED PALESTINE

By ELSIE K. MORTON

" gave Palestine to the Jews 1 It has belonged to our people for centuries! If the Jews want it, let them come and take it the way they did before —let them fight for it!" The eves of our Arab chauffeur burned with dark hatred, as 1 bad seen them burn every time conversation turned to the all-absorbing, but dangerous topic. He gave tho steering wheel of tho car a twist that swung us violently round a corner of the narrow road that snakes in and out the wild Judean hills, and went on talking of tho clash of the two races that was turning the Holy Land once again into one of the battle areas of the world. Through all his talk, one sensed a bitter resentment toward England for her championship of the Jews. Hatred and Strife So strong was this atmosphere of hatred and strife that we were glad to be leaving Jerusalem. All through the week we had spent there, we had been conscious of a hair-trigger tension that had set everybody's nerves on edge. Every day the papers had published reports of some fresh outrage by the Arab bandits, or a skirmish with British troops. So heavily were the storm clouds gathering over Palestine during our visit, a year ago, that it was only after most careful inquiry into the position that the organisers of our Holy Land tour had decided to allow us to land. A military escort had accompanied us all tho way from" the port of Haifa down to Tel Aviv, and across tho Plain

Under Armed Escort to Galilee

of Sharon into Jerusalem, and had travelled with us on all our longer sight-seeing trips. Each day we had asked ono another anxiously, "Will the road to Nazareth be ,open?" For this was the road of danger, the ancient caravan route from Egypt to Damascus, leading for 100 niiies through the Judean hills from Jerusalem to Nablus —the Biblical city of Schechem —across Samaria and the Plains of Esdraelon to Nazareth, and down to the Sea of Galilee. Not until the niglit before we were to set out on our journey to Syria had we known whether we would be allowed to follow this route, or whether we would have to take the longer and less interesting one by way of Haifa. The Nablus road had been closed for many weeks, and there seemed little hope that the authorities would consider it safe enough to be travelled by a party of British tourists. Then quite suddenly, fighting broke out on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee; many Arabs were slain, among them the leader of one of the most dangerous gangs of bandits infesting the Judean hills. The powers that be relented — we could take the Nablus road, but only under escort, and at no time were any of us to become separated from the rest of our party. Tiny Villages The Judean hill country that lies between Jerusalem and Nablus is veritably a Land of the Dead. Its utter desolation, grim stony wastes, and treeless, putty-grey hills seem to be the very embodiment of all the curses and punishments foretold by the prophots of Israel .in the dawn of Bible history. Many an ambush had been set

among these wild hills during the prevailing period of unrest, attacks launched on British troops and escape made into the wilderness where no man might follow. Yet strange as it appeared to us, there seemed to be no part of Palestine, with the exception of the terrible hills leading down to the Dead Sea, so arid or desolate but there would be a collection of flat-roofed mud hovels, looking for all the world like a huddle of square boxes, clinging to a ridge or mounting a hilltop In many cases these tiny villages would bear a name as old as history itself. Dramatic Contrast A pitiful picture was drawn by our guide of the hardships of the unfortunate villagers in the territory through which we were passing, Arab outlaws frequently descended on these isolated villages demanding food and shelter. If these were denied, vengeance was taken. If the villagers complied, they would very probably be accused of harbouring the rebels, and suspected of being in sympathy with them. To add to their difficulties, the closing of the road had meant that neither the hillside villagers, nor the farmers of tho fertile plains, could get supplies of food, or take their produce in safety to Jerusalem. It was with a sense of relief that we left the harsh Judean hill country behind, our eyes strained with eager seeking for dark faces peering from behind sheltering rocks. . . . Dramatic was the contrast between desolation, and the green fields of Samaria, waking to new life with the sudden onrush of spring. Soon we reached the ancient-' city of Nablus, built in a narrow canyon between the hills, its dark, winding streets crowded with fiercelooking men, women veiled in black from head to foot, and swarming with ragged children. Leaving Nablus, we came presently to Jezreel, where the evil Jezebel was done to death, and Ahab slain in battle. Where the great Plain of Esdraelon swept like a green sea to tho distant hills of Nazareth, the armies of the angient world had clashed and fought century by century, until the power of Israel was broken and shattered for ever, and their fair lands turned into the world's bloodiest battlefields, City of Christ And now, twenty centuries after the final destruction of the Holy City, we strangers from afar, members of every Christian Church, were allowed to pass down that way of conquest and sorrow only under armed escort I All the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth the armoured car had accompanied us. British soldiers safeguarded our passage to the City of Christ, waited while we visited the Virgin Mary's holy well, and the churches of the Miracle of Cana of Galilee. Through tho Plains of Dothan they went before us, past the Mount of the Beatitudes, and down through the hills to the Sea of Galilee. But now the road was no longer a way of solitude. It was thronged with weary-looking soldiers, sometimes riding on rumbling gun carriages, sometimes thundering by in armoured cars. They were troops returning to headquarters after the brush with the Arabs that had opened for us the Nablus road. At sunset I walked through the ruined village of Tiberias toward the hills. I wanted to wander quietly for a little while among the "lilies of the field," the asphodel and the anemones, that brought joy and peace in days gone by to One who so often walked those ways alone ... A call came down to me from the hillside above. I looked up and saw the figure of a soldier silhouetted against the sky, leaning on his rifle. He waved his hand toward the village . . . with a sigh I turned, and walked slowly back,