ARABS AND JEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22909, 17 June 1936, Page 9

ARABS AND JEWS

VALIDITY OF TREATY LAWRENCE’S TRANSLATION ACCURACY IN QUESTION (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, June 10. (Received June 10, at 11.10 p.m.) The News Chronicle’s Jerusalem correspondent says that propaganda in the Arab-Jewish struggle has thrown up the name of Lawrence of Arabia, who allegedly mistranslated for King Feisul the Arab-Jewish Treaty, signed in London in 1919, which was rccentlly published.

Dr Wcizmann, president of the English Zionist Federation, produced a copy of the treaty as proof that King Feisul strongly sympathised with a Jewish national home in Palestine, but the Arabs declare that the document is a Jewish forgery. This is improbable, but it is suggested on photostatic copies of the treaty that Lawrence mistranslated the treaty because he realised that unless King Feisul could be forced into giving the Jews their demands he could not fulfil his dream of a great Arab empire. King Feisul was unable to read English, and added a protective footnote, which Lawrence translated on Dr Weizmann’s copy, and King Feisul signed thus: “If the Arabs arc established as I asked in a manifesto addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, I will carry out this agreement.” A photostatic copy of King Feisul’s Arabic shows that lie wrote: “Should the Arabs obtain independence, etcetera.” It is said that Lawrence, ns a faultless Arabic scholar, could not have made a faulty translation. Accordingly it is suggested that if he mellowed King Feisul’s footnote, he almost certainly toned down the Zionist aspirations presented to King Feisul. The Moslem Council supports this view, declaring that when it hinted that the treaty existed King Feisul telegraphed denying his signature. This telegram is now in the possession of Hadi Bey, a signatory to the treaty, who is at present interned in connection with the disorders.

BUILDINGS SET ON FIRE

ACTIVITIES OF TERRORISTS JERUSALEM, June 15. Terrorists continue to defy the death penalty by setting lire to buildings and throwing bombs, most of which are duds. Snipers wounded two Gordon HighHighlanders. The damage to Jewish property is estimated at £150,000.

The Arabs assert that they are losing £1,000,000 monthly in trade and wages, but have not suffered much property damage.

CAUSES OF THE TROUBLE A STATEMENT REFUSED (British Otllclal Wireless) RUGBY, June 15. The Colonial Secretary declined to make a statement in the House of Commons on the causes of the recent unrest in Palestine, on the grounds that they will be among the matters for investigation by the proposed Royal Commission. Replying to a supplementary question, Mr Ormsby-Goro declared emphatically that the commission would only be set up when law and order were fully restored in Palestine. There were other supplementary questions, which went unanswered, but the Colonial Secretary intervened to contradict “clearly and definitely ” the incidental suggestion that the Grand Mufti was paid a salary by the British Government.