Wairarapa Daily Times (Established Over 60 Years.) FRIDAY, 27th AUGUST, 1937. PALESTINE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 27 August 1937, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times (Established Over 60 Years.) FRIDAY, 27th AUGUST, 1937. PALESTINE.

■» A historian has written that Palestine “has never belonged to one nation and probably never will.” And events have proved how profoundly true this is. Britain, wearied with the wrangles of seventeen years and with the bloodshed of fifteen months, has now decided for a Palestine divided between Jew and Arab. With the League of Nations’ acceptance of this proposal, the Holy Land would be partitioned into two independent nationalist states. Britain’s decision has opened floodgates of speculation, dissension, hope and fear. So many are the cross-currents, economic, political, racial, religious and historical sweeping the Holy Land, that Jew, Arab and Christian cannot agree in evaluating the proposal. To Britain it means an end to a trying phase of a seemingly irreconcilable struggle within her

mandated territory. With the exception of a mandate over the “holy places” of Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem and temporary supervision over the port of Haifa and a few other places, British control in Palestine will be nearly ended. However, Jew and Arab are bitter. Each feels, despite the new freedom and national standing he would gain, that he has been “sold out.” The Zionists fear lest it put an end to all their hopes of finding a refuge from persecution for large numbers of their race. They have received the richest part, yet feel it to be far inadequate for the needs of the Jewish National Home, .promised them by Great Britain. To the Arabs it means surrendering territory they have held for fourteen centuries. And they, too, were led by Britain in World War days to expect freedom in Palestine. In this mutual dissatisfaction many persons profess’to see the roots of much future trouble.

They forecast rampant nationalism overspreading J ewish-Arab borders, hatred fostered instead of decreased, and the makings of a new-.Ballcans with all its intense rivalries and intervention by larger powers. Then, finally, there is- opposition from such countries as Germany, Poland, Roumania and Hungary, that might be forced to change their national policies towards the Jews when the outlet for Jewish emigration restricted.