Problems in Palestine 1929

DIVIDING THE BLAME FOR PALESTINE BLOODSHED

THE ARROGANCE of the so-called Zionist Revolutionists is doubtless a causative factor behind the Moslem outbreaks against the Jews, says The American Hebrew (New York), in apportioning the blame among all those immediately concerned in the blood-letting in Palestine.

Primary responsibility is placed on the British authorities for permitting the opening of the blind end of the Wailing Wall area “to an inflamed and frenzied Arab mob,” but the “unscrupulous Moslem agitators” come in for a share, “and what we say of the Arab malefactors,” continues The American Hebrew, “we apply also to the Jewish agitators in Palestine. The bravado with which they claim Jewish Palestine against the Arabs, the aggressive zeal with which they demand an exclusive Jewish nationhood in Palestine, the inflammatory political harangues with which they demonstrate their foolhardy assertiveness, are in no little measure to blame for the ill-will and recurrent clashes between Moslem and Jew in the Holy Land.” This criticism applies, of course, only to the radical element among the Zionists, for in a later editorial pleading for a better understanding between Moslems and Jews in Palestine “for the sake of Palestine,” it is stated that “the Jews of the world would not desire a homeland for their brethren in Palestine if it is to be won and held at the point of a bayonet.” Rabbi Isaac Landman, the editor, calls the attention of the Moslems to the purpose of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, enunciated by Dr. Chaim Weizmann speaking for the Zionists, and Felix M. Warburg, speaking for non-Zionists, both of whom have declared that the objective of the Jews in Palestine is to create “a work of peace” that will benefit Moslems, Christians, and Jews alike. The editor thinks that this work of peace can be achieved mutually by Arabs and Jews, if the former, like the latter, would create an Arab Agency for Palestine on the lines and with purposes similar to those of the Jewish Agency.

Thus we have a reapportionment of blame for the latest tragedy which has afflicted a long-suffering people, and from Jews themselves a generous appreciation of Arab sentiment. Here again, tho he places primary responsibility for the murderous outbreaks on “the entire British policy,” Victor Rine, a Jewish journalist who is a close student of Eastern affairs, and who has made five trips to Palestine as an observer and student of events, apportions some of the blame on both Zionist and Arab leaders. Writing in the New York World, he tells us of the reverence in which the Arab was wont to hold the Jew, and then recites:Â Â

“The sad changes observable in the Arab attitude to-day are the inevitable results of definite causes, of fallacious policies, malicious incitements, and arrogance on all sides. They have led steadily through misunderstanding to hatred, murder, and plunder.

“Arab propagandists are not without responsibility. They, too, have been willing to interpret the Balfour Declaration as some Zionists interpret it, and they have stirred up their people with the argument that their homes have been taken away from them.

“They have been willing to ignore the plain fact that Jewish colonization has brought to all Palestine, including the 80 per cent. of the population which is Arab, a prosperity which has not been known there for many centuries. The millions of dollars which are collected every year by Jews all over tho world for Zionism are largely spent in Palestine, and the Arabs for the most part are the recipients.

“Land prices have risen to heights which no Arab land-owner had ever dreamed of before. The colonists are compelled to use Arab labor, and the wages of the workers, low enough by all European standards, let alone American standards, are still much higher than in the days of the Turk. Sanitation, hospitalization, all the comfortable influences of civilization are benefiting the Arabs as never before.

“But some of the Arab leaders speak of these things only as a warning of increasing Jewish influence which will one day deprive the Moslem of his heritage. The argument is strengthened by those Jews who deny the validity of that heritage, who regard a thousand years of Arab occupancy as a usurpation, and claim the whole country as their own.”

A Roman Catholic view-point of the tragedy is furnished us by The Commonweal (New York), which criticizes the British Government for withdrawing the garrison from Palestine, and says it “should have long ago defined and defended the right of the Jews to worship in their immemorial holy places.” Tho it has ” no wish to deny that certain sections among the Palestine Jews have supplied their share of provocation in the present feud,” The Commonweal believes “their right in the holy places is anterior to the Moslems’ in history; and, speaking as Christians,” holds “that their right is spiritually superior, as well.”

Remarking that “naturally, American newspapers and politicians are inclined to emphasize the sorrows of the Jews, wantonly attacked by barbarous hordes of fanatical Moslems,” The Reformed Church Messenger observes.

“This is a popular viewâ€”and it must be remembered that the Arab vote in America is pitifully small, nor are the Arabs able to give large patronage to advertising columns. Of course, the Hebrew people, with their higher culture and a faith more akin to our own, seem considerably closer to us than the followers of Mohammed. Nevertheless, the Arabs are greatly in the majority in Palestine, and we wonder if they are to be blamed for not wanting to turn over the country they call their own to a rather uncompromising minority, backed by the material force of a British Mandate. It is a pretty complicated situation. and we can only hope that an enlightened British policy will see to it not only that peace is preserved, but also that substantial justice is done.”

It is interesting to recall here that two years ago Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church, New York, predicted that blood would flow in Zion unless the chauvinistic and arrogant attitude attributed to certain Zionist leaders was abated, and a more tolerant and sympathetic attitude toward the sons of Ishmael observed. In his “A Pilgrimage to Palestine,” written after a four months’ trip in the Near East, Dr. Fosdick asserted that Zionists them-selves contributed largely to make a bad situation worse. For instance, we read that “one of the most prominent Jews in the world, in his exuberance over the new hopes of Zionism, told the Arabs to ‘ trek along,’ and the repercussions of that phrase are heard wherever Arabs live to-day. Zionism to the Jew is an idealistic movement; seen from the Arab side it is predatory, and one who gains entree to the Arabs’ confidence will hear bitter words expressing their desire to convert the Jewish national home into the Jewish national cemetery.”

“Meanwhile, the Zionists themselves are displaying two attitudes, one tending to mollify the Arabs, and the other to infuriate them. On one side stands the unwisdom and arrogance of Dr. Eder, former acting chairman of the Zionist Commission in Palestine. Publicly before a court of inquiry on Jewish-Arab disturbances in Jaffa, he said in 1921, as the report of the commission reads: There can be only ‘one national home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish predominance as soon as the numbers of that race are sufficiently increased.’

“This is typical of the madness with which some Zionists have rushed into trouble. They have profest their determination that ‘ Palestine should be as Jewish as America is American and England is English.’ Even in The Palestine Weekly, published in Jerusalem itself, they have insisted that as between the two portions of the Balfour declaration, the first promising a national home for the Jews, and the second promising that the rights of previous inhabitants shall not be invaded, ‘the principle of the British policy for Palestine lies not in the second but the first.’ The upshot of all this has been disastrous.”

Dr. Fosdick is not entirely critical of the Zionist project. He lauds it as one of the most ambitious racial struggles in history. But, he declares, “if it would be successful it must be unselfish. It must count Arab welfare as precious as its own. It must center its efforts on creating in the Holy Land a cultural expression of world-wide Judaism.” If Zionism will thus clean house, Dr. Fosdick concluded, “then success may come. But if the partizans of political Zionism, as now seems probable, are allowed to force the issue, I am willing to risk my reputation on prophecy: Zionism will end in tragedy.”

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