PALESTINE AND THE EMPIRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23430, 21 August 1939, Page 8

PALESTINE AND THE EMPIRE

After the angry protests evoked by the publication in May of the British White, Paper on Palestine, it is at least encouraging to learn that leading Zionists have not lost faith in the ultimate benefits of British justice. The establishment of. an independent Palestine State, in which the Jews will live as a protected minority, is still opposed by those Jewish leaders whose aim is the recovery of their ancient racial home, but for all that a prominent figure at the Zionist Congress in Geneva has seen fit to declare that in the event of a world war the Jews of Palestine will light on the .side of the British Empire. This gesture of loyalty should not pass unnoticed. Evidence is not lacking that dissension between Jew and Arab in Palestine has been actively fostered by Nazi and Fascist propaganda and yet neither Jew nor Arab has shown the slightest sign of placing any trust in the European dictators. Jews the world over must look askance at any manifestation of German manoeuvring, while the rape of Albania has not endeared Mussolini to the/Moslem world. Jew and Arab have not been able to live in peace together within the narrow confines of the Holy Land, but the latest Jewish declaration is such as to suggest thcit any threat of external pressure from scheming European Powers will find the two peoples, if not united in sympathies, at least equally -determined that Britain alone is to be entrusted with the task of guiding their destinies. That will be their answer to the propagandists of Rome and Berlin, with their speciously manufactured tales of British atrocities in Palestine. Anything that effects a cormnoiv aim in Jewish and Arab aspirations must ultimately make for a happy solution of present difficulties.