PALESTINE: Holy and Civil

Chaotic terror in Palestine—politely called “serious deterioration” by British statesmen—moved U.S. bigwigs last week far more than Czechoslovakia’s unhappy fate did three weeks ago. Secretary of State Cordell Hull promised to consult Britain on Palestine’s future.

The U.S. is interested in Palestine because: 1) 9,000 U.S. Jews have settled there; 2) some $200,000,000 collected by U.S. Jews is invested there; 3) by the 1924 U.S.-British Palestine Mandate Convention the U.S. has the same right as any League of Nations member to enter objections to any change in Britain’s mandate over the Holy Land. Among 8,500 telegraphing protestants urging U.S. pressure on Britain to keep Palestine open to Jewish immigration were Representatives and Senators, five Governors, many Protestant churchmen, New York City’s Council, prominent labor leaders, hundreds of Zionists, numerous literary and political figures.

Meanwhile, a defiant Moslem Congress with delegates from eight Moslem countries, exultant that Arab rebels now rule large areas of Palestine, met in Cairo, demanded that Britain repudiate the famed Balfour Declaration promising to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, stop Jewish immigration, resign as mandatory Power—in plainer words, that Britain get out and leave the 400,000 Jews to the mercy of the 900,000 Arabs. Significant it was that the delegates journeyed to Alexandria to drink tea at Ras-El-Tin Palace with plump, ambitious, 18-year-old King Farouk I of Egypt, whose palace clique foresees for him the future role of Caliph of all Islam.

To the studied ambiguity of the 1917 declaration by Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, can be attributed Britain’s contradictory rule in the old Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. A one-sentence, 67-word declaration, it promised a “Jewish national homeland” but conspicuously failed to define whether a Jewish homeland meant a home with an Arab or a Jewish majority. At first high Arab leaders, equally lulled by Lord Balf our’s vagueness, were inclined to welcome their “Semitic brothers” back to the Holy Land.

When Jewish immigration increased by leaps and bounds, when Jewish leaders proclaimed their expectation of forming a Jewish majority, the Arabs’ attitude stiffened. Successive terroristic campaigns were waged, a “holy war” was in progress. Exile, imprisonment, death on the gallows only seemed to increase the crusading ardor of those who believed the Prophet’s promise: “Whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion and odoriferous as musk and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubims.”

By last week Palestine’s undeclared “holy war” had become also a civil war. British civil administration had ceased to function in countless villages and towns. Bethlehem was in the hands of Moslem terrorists, although later retaken by British “Tommies.” Valuable orange groves were cut down at night, grenades were hurled from ambush at passing busses, police posts were raided, telephone and telegraphic communications, cut a month ago, remained unrepaired. Casualties mounted to 1,850 for the last three months. In Jerusalem Arab terrorists hurled four bombs at District Commissioner Edward Keith-Roach. He was not hurt.

British troops arrived daily from India, England, Egypt. They poured out of Jerusalem to begin a punitive campaign against the rebels. Last year a British commission to Palestine recommended a three-way partition of a country a bit larger than Vermont. The recommendations pleased neither Arabs nor Jews. Stalling for time, Britain sent out a second commission, presumably to study the partition proposals. Now Britain’s next “solution” of this knottiest, most insoluble problem will be submitted to Parliament when it reopens November 1. What the “solution” will be few knew last week, but Arabs and Zionists, remembering Munich, expected the worst.