PALESTINE EXPERIMENT

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11786, 24 March 1924, Page 12

PALESTINE EXPERIMENT

DIFFERENT FBOM ZIONISM. MR ZANGWILL’S STATEMENT. Political Zionism is dead ! This declaration of Israel Zangwill to the American Jewish Congress, at the first of its recent sessions in New York City, precipitated a storm which still rages with the premise of gaining rather than losing force (says “Current Opinion,’’ New York). There can he now Jewish nation in Palestine, tho famous author, playwright, and scholar warned his colreligionists, because all but 4 per cenc. of the land is owned by Arabs who have no disposition to part with it. And even should the land he bought from them or expropriated, and the Arab population transferred elsewhere (as to Mesopotamia), there could still be no Jewish nation in Palestine, because England holds a mandate over the territory. England will encourage a Jewish homeland, according to Zangwill, l ’ut no independent nation. Therefore, at best, Palestine can only become a new part of the “diaspora, ’ the dispersed body -of Jewry, scattered through the world. The Jewish problem lies between Palestine and the diaspora, says Zaugwill. Palestine, a little country about the size of Wales, has suffered diminution at the hands of French imperialism, which has sliced off the northern portion; “while Arab imperialism has robbed it of its extensibility eastward.” At most, it could shelter and feed only about one-quarter of tho 16,000,000 Jews of the diaspora. A SCRAP OF WHITE PAPER . Zangwill declared that Lord Balfour’s famous declaration about Palestine was the work of a sincere man, though it had been since reduced to “a scrap of white paper.” The blame lay with the military administration of Palestine, “brazenly overruling the Home Government. The function of permanent British officialdom is to curb the generous impulses of their transient and embarrassed chiefs, and to - express the honourable indiscretions of Ministers in language which does not so much conceal as cancol them.” TOO PREVIOUS THANKS.

“Thus,” the speaker continued, “our synagogues thanked God for tho reestablishment of Palestine as a Jewish home, without noticing that tho phrase ‘a Jewish home in Palestine’ had been slyly truth is, there is a joint BritishJewish interest in Palestine, without which the officialdom of the Foreign Office would have strangled the Balfour declaration even before birth. ... In some respects it might hare been better had France and England frankly i divided Syria between them as legitiI mate Bpoils of war, leaving the Jewish i people unentangled with the ambiguj ous device of mandate and the dubious | justice of peace treaties.” j ANGRY CRITICS. Though the American Jewish Congress had anticipated a gloomy message from the distinguished speaker, they apparently did not foresee so devastating an onslaught. Nathan Straus, honorary president of the organisation, gave to the newspapers the following day a sweeping denunciation of the author, denying the truth of everything he said about Zionism, and declaring that were Zangwill his own son he would denounce him. Zungwill has, nevertheless, stood his ground, repeated his charges, and stayed to fight the matter out on American sou. Before ever he left England, he gays, he warned the committee whioh invited him to address the congress that he must be permitted to speak his mind, or.he would not sail at all. After his arrival in this country, he asserts, groat pressure was brought ’to bear to censor his speech and modify his statements, but without avail. The truth had been demanded, and he would give them nothing less, no matter how unpalatable it might be. THE ONLY ZIONISTS.

“The only way to he a Zionist,” according to I. Zangwill, “is to be in Zion. Ferdinand, the ex-King of Bulgaria, is credited with defining a Zionist a 3 a' man who pays another man to live in Palestine. When one remembers that, though Zionism is practically financed from America, only 66 Jews left America for Palestine in 1922, one sees that Ferdinand was not far out Believe me,, when I had hopes of the establishment) of a Jewish State, whether in Palestine or elsewhere,- it neiver occurred to me that I should not settle there. For years my wife and I lived on an uncertain footing, nerv'd knowing when the call might come. . . . “There is to be no Jewish State in Palestine—only a development of the Jewish nationality previously existing in Palestine. That was formally laid down in the Churchill-Slaimuel ’ White Paper, and as formally accepted by the Zionist leaders. My monition .at the great Balfour meeting that Mount Zion in labour must not produce a mouse has been disregarded.” The “American Hebrew,” an influential anti-Zionist weekly, commenting on the inconsistency of inviting Zangwill to America to tell the truth, and the next morning denouncing him because he- had the courage to tell it, declares that “what Mr Zangwill did eay was fearless and honest.’ It quotes the speaker on the subject of the fog which envelops all parts of Zionist propaganda save only the skv sign, “Give Money I” So long as the Zionist organisation is being red with funds it will not acknowledge honourable defeat, for, as Zangwill says, “all organisations ding to life, especially when they own funds.” Therefore, continues this weekly in its leading editorial, “we return to our old slogan: Scrap Zionism and Build Palestine.” _ Tin's is language which the Arabs will understand. Only after Zionism has been honourably interred will the two races work together for their common home.