The Timaru Herald SATURDAY. JULY 9, 1938 PALESTINE AT THE CROSSROADS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21084, 9 July 1938, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY. JULY 9, 1938 PALESTINE AT THE CROSSROADS.

Some months ago a highly capable and keenly observau member of the staff of a well-known English daily news paper, on returning to London from a comprehensivt journey through Palestine, declared that “those win remain permanently in the Holy Land, either becoim callous or increasingly on edge: the disturbances are ; fair gauge which mood is on the ascendant. ’ Measurer by this yardstick, the situation in Palestine yields mosi disturbing results: indeed, 77m Times, following tin recent bomb outrages and the disturbances that invari ably follow, thus sums up the situation in Palestine: “The present wave of outrages stands out only in relief iron many months of lawlessness. Each week from ten to twelve Jews and Arabs have been murdered and from fifty to eighty wounded. Most of these outrages were commuted against Eolqtec Jewish communities, and the majority until now have been committed by Arab terrorists who are by no means representative of the whole Arab feelings. Now the Jews seem to Ire arming and some wilder youths are organising count er-terrorism gangs.’’ Manifestly, if the precautions being taken reveal the attitude of the Imperial authorities to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Palestine, intensified racial tension and widespread terrorism will inevitably force the British Government to apply sterner safeguards in place of the weakened authority of the League ol Nations as controllers of holders of mandates, in which category Great Britain finds itself in relation to Palestine. To the British Government the sequence of commissions which have visited Palestine since the war seem, no doubt, a steady fulfilment of the mandate; to the inhabitants of that country they have assumed a cycle as familiar as its religious festivals. It is somewhat, ironic that Britain’s efforts to relieve herself of a difficult mandate, by providing a large measure of “home rule’’ for both races, should be met with such demonstrations of hostility. But the age-old struggle continues, in which the Jew and the Arab will strive for supremacy. Nevertheless it is probably correct to say that a large proportion of the people of both races would prefer peace under Britain’s plan, rather than the present tumult. As Aidan Crawles says in The Daily Telegraph and The Morning Post: “Boycott follows announcements and bomb-throwing the giving of evidence with seasonal regularity, and though both Arabs and Jews may wish it, it is improbable that the Partition Commission pursuing its labours in the country will end the sequence. Meanwhile, what is life in Palestine like? Is it normal, or is it life In a civil war? ■>, Tire experiences of a film unit which recently spent six months travelling up and down the country photographing Arabs of every type, from Bedouins to members of the former Moslem Supreme Council, and as many Jews as would break the law against graven images, are a good answer. That the films could be taken at all prove that for most of the population and most of the time life in Palestine is normal. Crops are sown and harvested, men are daily in the fields and women in the market, buses, both Arab and Jewish, run regularly, and so on. Within the past week or two, terrorism in Palestine has reached something of a crescendo of violence in which the deepest bitterness has been aroused: so much so, it is generally believed, that unless the British Government take hold of the stiuation with both hands, the whole country may be plunged into civil war which may provide another arena for the play of those terrible forces that are struggling for supremacy in Spain to-day.