PALESTINE’S FUTURE.

JEWS AND ARABS.

PROBLEM OF ZIONISM.

The situation in Palestine is one that is only too likely to attract in London less attention than it requires. Not only are there other and more pressing problems in the field, but it must be admitted that Palestine, hedged about as it is with complications, industrial and political, and with jealousies, religious and racial, has an interest for Europe which is increasing with rapidity. The gravity of the position is increased because, by common consent, only three months remain for action before the question again becomes acute, and because there appears to be little ground for compromise. The following review of the situation only deals with it in the wider aspects.

Fanaticism is known not to see the wood for the trees, and Jerusalem is par excellence the home of fanaticism. Nine and forty times has this unhappy city been captured by storm, and seven times it has opened its gates to an invader – the last, Lord Allenby – and every time, except perhaps that, religion has been at the root of strife. A distinguished Zionist said to me, “I have been in Jerusalem but eighteen months. So far I have been able to keep a sense of proportion, but perhaps after another eighteen months, I too, shall lose it like the rest.”

This is no idle comment, for it is entirely necessary to remember at this juncture that the policy to be hammered out in the cool detachment of Westminster will have to be enforced in the overcharged atmosphere of Palestine. So overcharged is it, that few here fail to recognise that only the singularly sane and sage speech of Sir Herbert Samuel on June 3 has prevented widespread revolt on the part of the dismayed and disappointed Arab population of Palestine.

The steps which have led up to this crisis are easy to trace. Mr. Balfour’s original declaration was made to a sympathetic but incurious world, that had no time to consider anything but the winning of the war; nor during the Peace Conferences has there been leisure to deal with the thorny question of the practical and just realisation of his proposal. This delay would in any case have rendered the solution of the Zionist problem difficult, for religious fervour once aroused does not mark time to suit the convenience of politicians. But the most formidable obstacle of all is one that the world, whether engaged on war or engaged on peace, may be pardoned for not having wholly foreseen – the extraordinarily rapid and phenomenal growth of a sense of nationality among the Arabs.

SELF-DETERMINATION.

It needs to be remembered that the Arabs in this country – who outnumber the Jews by about six to one – are not only encouraged in opposing the scheme because they regard it as a denial of the right of self-determination to Palestine, but because they are one with the great mass of the Arabs of Trans-jordania and Syria, and – a matter of supreme importance throughout the Near and Middle East – one also with all the other members of the Islamic faith at the supreme crisis in its history.

It is the more certain, as month succeeds month, that the ultimate destiny of Palestine will be decided by the ultimate success, or failure, of the ambitions of the Syrian and Trans-jordanian Arabs, which, in turn, depends – as, indeed, the fortunes of the whole of Western Asia depend – upon the issue of the dispute between the Allies and Angora. If, in accordance with the explicit statement in the Covenant of the League of Nations, Syria, after a short period of tutelage under France, assumes independence, there is no question of claims of the Palestine Arabs to self-determination will be secured through the action of the Syrian Arabs. Certainly Great Britain will not employ force to prevent this application of the principle.