APPEAL TO JEWS AND ARABS

Southland Times, Issue 23676, 26 November 1938, Page 7

APPEAL TO JEWS AND ARABS

BRITAIN’S POLICY IN PALESTINE

COMPLEXITIES OF RACIAL PROBLEM (British Official Wireless) (Received November 25, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, November 24. The Secretary for the Colonies (Mr Malcolm MacDonald), opening in the House of Commons the debate on Palestine, said it had not been possible, pending publication of the Woodhead Report, to make a constructive effort for peace. It had meanwhile been necessary to concentrate on dealing with the campaign of assassination which had developed into an Arab revolt against the British authorities. The forces now at the disposal of the Government were steadily establishing order again. “We all know certain interested propagandists have been levelling many foul charges against the conduct .of our troops,” Mr MacDonald said. “I see a good many things at the Colonial Office, but I have never seen any evidence to support those charges. On the contrary, the reoccupation of the Old City area of Jerusalem a few weeks ago was an example of the way in which the British troops can with perfect humanity as well as prefect success conduct a delicate military operation among a civilian population. “But the t-eal problem of Palestine is not military, but political. Our troops can restore order—they cannot restore peace. The Government has to do that i

“The problem of Palestine was stated brilliantly in the report of the Peel Commission. First of all there are the Jews. Neatly 2000 years ago their home was Palestine. Since then they have been dispersed and scattered over the face of the earth, but during the last 20 years many of them have been hastening back to Palestine under the terms of the mandate entrusted by more than 50 nations to Britain. • Since 1922 more than 250,000 Jews had entered Palestine and settled there." NEW CITY CREATED Mr MacDonald added that their achievements had been Remarkable. They had turned sand and dust into orange groves and they /had created a new city, housing today 140,000 souls where there was once only bare seashore. The Jews were in Palestine not on sufferance, but by right, and today, under the lash of persecution in Central Europe, their eagerness to return to -their own homeland had been multiplied a hundredfold. The tragedy of a people which had no country had never been so deep as it had been this.week. “I must utter this word of warning,” said Mr MacDonald. “When we promised the Jews a national home in Palestine we did not anticipate this fierce persecution in Europe. We made no promise that that country should be a home for everyone who was seeking to escape from such imminent calamity, arid even if there were no other population Palestine, with its rather meagre soil, could not in fact support more than a fraction of those Jews who might wish to escape from Europe. “The problem of refugees from Central Europe cannot be settled in Palestine. It has to be settled over a far wider field. The British Empire, of course, can make its contribution. It is making its contribution today, but at the present time, in spite of the disturbance, emigrants are going to Palestine week after week at the rate of about 1000 a month."

The Government, said Mr MacDonald, announced a short time ago the next definite stage'in its Palestine policy—the discussions with the Arabs and Jews in London—and it could not do anything now which would prejudice the chance of these discussions ending successfully. It was in the best interests of the Jews themselves that tire future policy in Palestine should as far as possible be based on a wide agreement. ARABS’ POSITION Referring to the Arabs, Mr MacDonald recalled that they had lived in the country many centuries. They were not consulted when the Balfour Declaration was made nor when the mandate was framed, and during these post-war years they had watched with occasional angry protest this peaceful invasion of an alien people. They wondered whether a halt was ever going to be called to it, and feared it was going to be their fate in the land of their birth to be dominated by an energetic, new-coming peopledominated economically, politically and commercially. A great many people regarded the Arab agitation as a mere protest by a gang of bandits, and it was true that many Arabs who had taken part most eagerly in the trouble were cut-throats of the worst type; but there was much more than that in the Arab movement. They must recognize that many in the Palestinian movement were moved by genuine patriotism. Mr MacDonald referred to the growth of the Arab population, which is now 990,000 and is estimated to reach 1,500,000 in 20 years. Mr MacDonald added that the Arabs could not say the Jews were driving them out of their country. Had no single Jew come into Palestine after 1918 the Arab population today would still have been round about 600,000. It was because the Jews came, bringing modern health services and other advantages, that Arab men and women who would have been dead were alive today and Arab children who would never have drawn breath had been born and grown strong. It was not merely the Jews who had benefited by the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs had also benefited very greatly. He knew the Arabs feared they would lose freedom and be dominated by the Jews if the process went on. “Wb cannot put the Jews under the domination of the Arabs in Palestine but also, unless we can remove that Arab fear that they are going to be put under the domination of the Jews, we shall have to face a hostile people over a great area and we shall have to lock up a great par*- of our army in Palestine,” said Mr MacDonald. “Under the treaty we have solemn obligations to both peoples in Palestine. On the one hand we are pledged to facilitate Jewish emigration into Palestine under suitable conditions and to encourage the settlement of Jews on the land. On the other hand we are pledged to see that the weight and position of the Arab population is not prejudiced. CO-OPERATION URGED “How are we to reconcile justly those two obligations? That is the problem we have got to solve. I do not think it ought to rest on the Gov-erns-nt alone to find a solution, It ought to rest also on the other parties concerned—the Arabs and the Jews. They have both to make concessions to each other. If they would only be willing to do that, peace and prosperity would return to both parties in Palestine. The Government is prepared to make a supreme effort to achieve that understanding.” . Mr MacDonald recalled an incident twenty years ago when Dr Chaim Weizmann, on behalf of the Zionist organization, crossed the Jordan and con-

ferred with King Feisal, of Iraq, with whom, after some months, he signed an agreement about Palestine. That was the relationship towards which they wanted to move back. The coming discussions would probably be held between the Government and each of the other parties separately, but they hoped before long that all three would gain in the discussions. “The Government,” said Mr MacDonald, “will of course enter. these discussions bound by its obligations under the mandate to the Jews and to the Arabs and bound by its duty to Parliament, to the other members of the League of Nations and to the United States, and shall not seek to prevent Arab or Jewish representatives from offering argument why the mandate should be discontinued.”

He hoped it would be possible to start the discussions in London within the next few weeks, or at the latest at the beginning, of January. Mr Herbert' Morrison (Labour) said the Opposition did not criticize the decision to call a conference. He thought, however, that it should have some reasonable idea of the Government’s policy, and'asked for an undertaking that Parliament would not without consultation be committed to any agreement reached. He suggested the further lifting of the restriction on immigration to permit a greater number of Jews to go to Palestine at once. The Leader of the Liberal Opposition (Sir Archibald Sinclair) pressed for favourable continuation of Dr Weizmann’s suggestion for allowing 10,000 Jewish children to enter where the same number of Jewish families was willing to take them.

ANTI-JEWISH RIOTING IN SOUTH AFRICA AFTERMATH OF FASCIST MEETING (Received November 25, 6.30 p.m.) JOHANNESBURG, November 24. The police quelled with tear gas bombs anti-Jewish rioting after a fascist meeting. Thirty persons were injured, two of whom were shot and one stabbed. A mob shouting “down with the Jews,” chased every Jew in sight.