ARAB VIOLENCE IN PALESTINE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20446, 17 June 1936, Page 9

ARAB VIOLENCE IN PALESTINE

BACKED BY CLEVER PROPAGANDA

ALLEGED FORGERIES IN TREATIES

“LAWRENCE OF ARABIA” INDICTED United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received June 16, 11.10 p.m.) LONDON, June 16. The Jerusalem correspondent of “The News Chronicle” says that the propaganda in the Arab-Jewish struggle has thrown up the name of Lawrence of Arabia, who is alleged to have mistranslated for King Feisul, the ArabJewish Treaty which was signed in London in 1919, and which was recently published. Dr. Welzmann has produced a copy of the Treaty as proof that King Feisul strongly sympathised with the 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 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. He added a protective footnote, which Lawrence translated on Weizman’s copy and King Feisul signed thus: “If the Arabs are established as I asked in the manifesto addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, I will carry out this agreement.” The photostatic copy of King Feisul’s Arabic shows that he wrote: “Should the Arabs obtain their independence, etc.” It is said the Lawrence, as a faultless Arabic scholar, could not have made faulty translation. Accordingly it is suggested that if I.e mellowed King Feisul’s footnote, and he almost certainly toned down the Zionist aspirations presented by King Feisul. The Moslem Council supports this view, declaring that when it was 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. TERRORISTS ACTIVE RAIDS ON JEWISH PROPERTY United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright JERUSALEM, June 15. Terrorists, who continue to defy the death penalty, are setting fire to buildings, and throwing bombs, mostly duds. Snipers wounded two Gordon Highlanders. 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 they have not suffered much property damage.