THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1933. ARABS AND JEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22100, 2 November 1933, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1933. ARABS AND JEWS

Even in the midst of the world depression Palestine, as a national home for the Jews, under the British mandate, has enjoyed a remarkable and growing prosperity. In the background remains, however, the problem arising out of the difficulty of ensuring that Arab and Jew shall inhabit the land together in peace and amity. The trouble which has again drawn attention to Palestine seems to be a recrudescence of earlier manifestations of a similar character, and to be identifiable in the essentials as an Arab demonstration against the Jewish colony. The report that martial law has been proclaimed indicates the existence of a somewhat disturbing situation. The suggestion which was made in the earlier cablegrams, that the idta that racial antagonism was responsible for the outburst of Arab feeling against the Jews was untenable, and that the explanation was to be found in purely economic reasons must be discounted to a large extent in face of the evidence that strong resentment has been excited among the Arabs over the immigration of Jews. Nor, probably, is the international effect of Hitlerism to be ignored. The natural desire of the Jews that an asylum should be found in Palestine for thousands of their race who have been driven from Germany will have been sufficient in itself to excite protest on the part of the Arabs in their own way. Palestine is a small country, but in twelve years Jews to the number of 125,000 have been added to its population, and the Jewish percentage among the people of Palestine is now the highest in the world. The British Government, which has to hold the balance between Jews and Arabs, will have been quite alive to the fact that any substantial enlargement of the immigration quota was likely to lead to trouble! Whether through the nursing of old grievances, or because of evidence or of apprehension of an increased influx of Jews into the country, the Arabs have deemed the occasion ripe in any case for an expression of their feelings. The Central British Fund established early this year to help the German Jews issued recently a report in which it was said: “It cannot be too strongly or too frequently emphasised that on account of existing world conditions the migration now taking place must involve occupational readjustments on a considerable scale, and that this new factor must play a large part in the work of Jewish settlement, whether in Palestine or in other countries.” The Arab community in Palestine is not likely to find reassurance in representations of that nature. The British Government’s task in Palestine, whether in the control of immigration or in other directions, is not easy. On the one hand the Government is besieged by a vigorous Zionism, and on the other by a somewhat embittered Arab population and an Arab executive that is not very amenable to reason. It is difficult to convince the Arabs that the balance of justice is being maintained, and that their interests are being adequately safeguarded. The land question is probably the most awkward of the problems arising in Palestine. Recently the British Government published reports by Mr Lewis French, until lately Director of Development in Palestine, on the resettlement of Arabs displaced from their land hy Jews. “ Leaving aside a few insignificant areas in the hills . . . in reality there are at the present time,” he said, “ no cultivable lands at all which are ‘ surplus ’ in the sense that they are not already subject to cultivation or occupancy by owners or tenants.” The suggestion has been made that the decision to publish these reports had some close connection with the demand of the Zionists that the doors of Palestine be opened to a wholesale emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany and elsewhere. A few months ago Dr Weizmann, formerly President of the World Zionist Organisation, and now president of the Hebrew university at Jerusalem, proposed the settlement in Palestine of 250,000 Jewish refugees. Mr Lewis French reported that if the land were required for colonists, Arab . or Jew, it must be bought with cash or its equivalent from existing occupiers. The British Government has to consider both the problem of the landless Arab, and its attitude towards large-scale Jewish philanthropy seeking opportunity to purchase more

lands from Arab occupiers. It is evident that economic and racial troubles in Palestine are very closely related. It is to be hoped that the statement made by the Secretary for Colonial Affairs, in which he has emphasised the British Government’s intention of discharging fully and fairly, without fear or favour, its obligations under a mandate that carries with it a clear duty to both the Arabs and the Jews, will have a reassuring effect.