ISHMAELITES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27057, 16 April 1949, Page 6

ISHMAELITES

In 1946 there was an Arab population of approximately 1,140,000 in Palestine. To-day the British mandate has been relinquished, war has passed over the land, and a Jewish Government has been set up in the State of Israel. Into this State, which has yet no defined boundaries, Jews from the continents of Asia and Europe are pouring at the rate of 1000 a day, and in that small country it is difficult to accommodate them. But there is another accommodation problem—that of perhaps as many as 800,000 Arabs who are now displaced people, scattered through Arab Palestine, Syria, the Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq. The exact number of them is not known, since they are hot even herded together in emergency camps but are lost in caves on the hills or clustered around villages in which the inhabitants themselves have only a bare subsistence. These people are indeed Ishmaelites in a bitter new sense of the old term. Already the refugees have endured a winter of exposure, and it may be recalled that there were severe snowstorms in these countries as late as February. Disease has also claimed its toll. In the coming months the problem will continue to be acute, but when the immediate misery has been palliated there will still remain the question of „ where these people are to find their future home. Towards the end of last yecfr the General Assembly of the United Nations called for contributions amounting to 32,000,000 dollars for Arab relief for the period from December, 1948, to August, 1949, and previously the British Government had made a conditional offer of £1,000,000. Some of ( the promises which were made to the United Nations have not yet been fulfilled, and so far the director of the work in Palestine has received only 10,000,000 dollars. Fortunately, help has come from the Arab Governments—none of whi'ch are wealthy —from the Children’s Emergency Fund of the United Nations, and from voluntary organisations. The account which was printed by the Economist in February shows that it was largely as the result of this assistance that a greater tragedy was averted. The heat of summer will, however, almost certainly increase the incidence of disease. It would We a shocking thing if this refugee problem was yet to be settled by extermination through the operation of natural forces. Adverting recently to the subject the Economist remarked: “ Clearly, Israel cannot have the Arabs back.

. . i' But equally clearly, if it lifts no finger to help the people whom it has dispossessed, it creates untold trouble for neighbours very much poorer than itself.” And it puts the question: “Is it right that all outside help should be sought from the West, and none from Israel? ” Here is one way in which Israel could seek co-operation with the Arabs and with the peoples of the West.